A Must-See Video About Circus Elephants with Alec Baldwin

This is a superb PETA video on animals in circuses, hosted and narrated by actor Alec Baldwin. There is an excellent interview in the video with a longtime veterinarian Dr. Mel Richardson, who has worked with elephants in circuses for over 40 years. Please have a look at this video. It's not very long and it's quite informative.

One of My Favorite Actors: Casey Affleck on Why He Became a Vegan

Another one of my favorite videos, from PETA, featuring the wonderful actor Casey Affleck. This video actually had an influence on me going vegan in the fall of 2009. Have a look at it if you get a chance and share it with friends and loved ones.

Casey is a fantastic performer and a very insightful guy. Back when I was an omnivore and I watched this video for the first time, I really liked his approach to the issue. He turned out to be non-dogmatic, yet outspoken in his beliefs. A video like this one is especially good for folks who are still sitting on the fence. check it out if you get a chance.

Bill Clinton as PETA's Man of the Year? Hmmmmm...

Remember that song by C+C Music Factory that was popular about 20 years ago called "Things That Make You Go Hmmm"? It was based on one of Arsenio Hall's favorite taglines (talk about relics of the early nineties!).

Anyway, Bill Clinton winning People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' (PETA) "Man of the Year" award today was definitely one of those things that made me go hmmm. Most of you already knew by now that Clinton adopted a mostly vegan diet in May of this year.

Yeah, OK, I know that just the other day I said that on balance, maybe - maybe - animal rights advocates should stick with PETA, despite the mistakes and lousy stands the organization has made over the past several years.

And yeah, I know Bill Clinton is the most high-profile figure to embrace a vegan diet in 2010, which does a lot to bring the issue of veganism into the mainstream. That's terrific. And I'm especially happy that the vegan diet has worked wonders in helping to improve Clinton's health.

Bill Clinton explained his vegan diet on a national talk show:

I live on beans, legumes, vegetables, fruit. I drink a protein supplement every morning -- no dairy, I drink almond milk mixed in with fruit and a protein powder so I get the protein for the day when I start the day up. (Source)

And PETA defended its decision to name Clinton its "Man of the Year" thusly (in the words of Senior Vice President Dan Matthews):

Bill Clinton won not only because he's the most prominent person to go vegan this year but also because he used his platform to articulate the reasons why a plant-based diet is the most healthy diet. And of course, it doesn't hurt that he has Chelsea's lead to follow. She went vegan at 10, though her motivation was simply not wanting to support cruelty to animals. (Source)

I saw Clinton's interviews when he made the big announcement and he was extremely careful not to raise the issue of animal rights at any point. Moreover, Clinton admitted in all of those interviews that he eats fish. (Media outlets said Clinton was on a "mostly vegan" diet; is there such a thing??? I always thought you were either vegan or you weren't. Maybe I'm wrong...)

My purpose here is not to nitpick. I suppose my main concern is that there are a growing number of people embracing a vegan diet purely for health reasons. They want to lose weight. They want to feel healthier. And that's good. I'm happy to see it.

But when ethics are not at the root of these choices, then the "Vegan Diet" becomes a fad much like the South Beach Diet or the Atkins Diet (remember that god-awful thing??? I remember a loved one eating bacon all day long!!! Blech!).

People go on these fad diets. They lose weight fast (I lost 25 pounds instantaneously when I became a vegan... sadly a lot of his crept back on). And maybe in the process, the number of animals getting murdered dips slightly because of it.

But, much like all of those people who ditched the South Beach and Atkins diets after they quickly lost 10 or 15 or however many pounds, it's likely that a lot folks who become vegans for health reasons - like Bill Clinton - may very well end up following the same path.

It's difficult because of the temptation to cheer on every little advance that veganism makes. And I'm glad Bill Clinton is getting healthy again thanks to veganism - or a "mostly vegan" diet, I should say. But PETA giving him this award celebrates someone who became a vegan purely for health reasons, not to consciously help bring an end to the death and suffering of animals. Do his actions help animals? Probably some lives will be saved.

But you also have to look at intentions in these cases. Even if Clinton drew attention to the pluses of a vegetable-based diet, he did not - in any meaningful way - challenge the destructive system that is killing large numbers of animals every second of every day. Clinton deserves to be commended for his personal choices. But awarded? And by an organization that is supposed to champion animal rights?

Like I said at the outset, file this one under the "Things That Make You Go Hmmm" category.

Odds & Ends: A Thought-Provoking Column, a Bumbling Agency

Poorva Joshipura (right), director of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Europe, wrote an interesting response in The Guardian to George Monbiot, the author/activist and ex-vegan who very recently declared his support for eating meat in the same newspaper. I mentioned Monbiot in my Blog Entry the other day. In her column, Joshipura argues in support of what she sees as the most important reasons for going vegan. Most of her arguments have to do with the environment and refuting Monbiot's assertion that if everybody went vegan, it would take a huge toll on the earth. She also insists that going vegan is healthier than eating meat. At one point, Joshipura writes:

Monbiot also fails to consider the disastrous effects that animal-centred diets have on human health. Animal products, high in saturated fat and cholesterol, are linked to an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, strokes and many types of cancer. Plant-based foods, on the other hand, are cholesterol-free and high in fibre and can provide us with all essential nutrients.

There isn't much in her column on the animals themselves, although she does mention "the intense and prolonged suffering endured by animals who are raised and killed for food." She goes on to write that "PETA has long and publicly advocated that as long as animals continue to be raised and killed for food, they must be treated as humanely as possible." Fair enough. The factory farm system is a harsh reality out there. We can talk all we want about the inviolable rights of animals, but that doesn't get rid of factory farms or even reduce their production one iota. And if animals are going to be slaughtered, it is better that they not be kicked and punched and abused like they were at the Conklin Farms in Ohio earlier this year.

But this column would have been an ideal moment for Joshipura to say, "The bottom line is: We do not have the right to consume animals. They are sentient beings with rights and murdering them on a mass scale is not only immoral, it ought to be illegal." She missed that opportunity, even though I applaud her for calling on others to go vegan. And while her arguments are more persuasive than Monbiot's defense of meat eating, in the end it was Monbiot - and the defenders of the factory farm system - who set the boundaries of the debate. It is time that defenders of animals insist that more important the environment, more important than health issues, is the fact that we do not have the right to be doing what we are doing to animals. That is the single most compelling reason to go vegan, in my view.

On a related note: A report released yesterday by the Inspector General of the Department of Justice showed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted intense surveillance of Greenpeace, PETA and various antiwar groups. These investigations absorbed a lot of time, labor and money, and lasted between 2001 and 2006. Inspector General Glenn Fine concluded that the extensive surveillance was "unreasonable and inconsistent with FBI policy." (Source.) If you're wondering why the United States is losing the War on Terror, look no further than this absurd surveillance campaign. But this should come as no surprise. The FBI has been engaged in this sort of nonsense since World War I. And you can bet that even though the Inspector General insists the surveillance ended in 2006, the feds are still watching activists and keeping files on them. One wonders if they really - in their hearts of hearts - want to capture Osama Bin Laden. They seem much more intent on doing what they've done best for decades: Spying on legitimate, nonviolent dissenters, and treating them as enemies of the state.

Yeah... Even they feel pain...

The hardest meat for me to give up, believe it or not, was shrimp. What a delicacy! I used to buy the big shrimp rings, race home from the store, and dip them in that red cocktail sauce. I loved every succulent bite. Last fall, there was a period where I phased out meat but not fish. I reasoned that a cow or a pig or a chicken has more feelings, and more awareness, than the cod I was eating in my fish & chips, or the shrimps I was bringing home in my shrimp ring and dipping in the cocktail sauce.

But that state of affairs didn't last long. I'm one of those types who reads everything I can when it comes to subjects that interest me. And in that short window of time I became a pescetarian (someone who eats seafood but not other animals), I slowly began to realize that I had not yet made the transition to a compassionate diet. I read about fish. I learned about the pain and agony they suffer. Many die slow deaths. They live in agony in fish farms. And contrary to what some scientists such as James Rose, a fish neurobiology expert at the University of Wyoming say (Rose said, "the fish brain just hasn't got the hardware to experience pain..." source), fish do, in fact, feel pain.

Today, I stumbled across an article about a restaurant in Sacramento that has recently stopped serving "dancing prawns," much to the happiness of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). As the article explains:

After hearing from PETA that scientific studies show that prawns feel pain, Nishiki Sushi restaurant in Sacramento has informed PETA that it will no longer serve a cruel dish that's often called "dancing prawns." The dish's name is a reference to the writhing that the animals engage in when their protective shells are ripped off and acidic lemon juice is squeezed onto their raw flesh before they are eaten alive. PETA contacted the restaurant after receiving complaints from several patrons. "We [were] not aware that prawn[s] can feel pain," wrote Danny Leung, president of Nishiki Sushi Inc. "[W]e will no longer serve … prawn[s] alive. … Thank you for bringing this to our attention."

There have been numerous studies at universities around the world that clearly demonstrate that fish feel pain. Despite this, there are deniers who insist that the very notion that fish feel pain is pure idiocy. Last year, journalist and regular Slate.com contributor Michael Agger wrote an article reached the following verdict on the issue of fish pain:

What does my gut tell me about fish pain? Not happening. When I reel in a trout, I may be stressing the fish—making it expend precious energy—but it's not howling in agony.

Hard to say whether Agger believes this all the way through, because in the next paragraph, he wrote:

That's not to say that I think fish should be treated cavalierly. Back in the day, whenever I caught a sucker fish (i.e., a carp) in my home stream, I'd pick it up and hurl it onto the railroad tracks. (The justification being that carp are taking up space in the stream that could be used by trout.) I wouldn't do that now. I don't have a good reason why. It's just a vague, gut-level notion that fish should be treated with respect, just as you shouldn't speed up in your car to run over rabbits.

Usually, when pressed, people like Agger, who rationalize and justify - both publicly and in their own minds - inflicting pain on non-human animals, will sheepishly admit something along the lines of, "Welllllllllllll, maybe animals might feel something..." (e.g., stress, fear, momentary panic). But it is not pain. Human beings feel pain. Animals don't.

Tell that to the prawns who writhe in agony. Tell that to lobsters, who scream in boiling pots of water. Tell that to the rainbow trout, who flop and struggle and roll around in a desperate search for the water that is their natural habitat. Tell that to harpooned sharks and whales, who flail and twist and contort in bloody water.

That's not pain you're feeling. Just a little momentary anxiety. As my dentist used to say, "This won't hurt a bit."

My friends, don't buy it. The notion that the "seafood" we eat never felt any pain is but one small piece of a giant mosaic that makes up Fortress Denial. Already, more and more people are waking up to the truth. One year ago at this time, I was chowing down on shrimp, knocking off one of those big rings each night, never even giving a millisecond's thought to the pain that creature experienced. Now, I won't go near 'em. People do learn. People do change.

The change starts with you.